Looking for a pc for photo editing

[kerr]

Budget is £200 maybe £250 which may well be nowhere near enough.
Obviously im looking at the second hand market but having a fairly basic knowledge of computers i need a bit of guidance.
Something like this any good?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Optiplex-3010-i5-3rd-gen-8GB-RAM-1Terabyte-HDD-Win10-mouse-keyboard-/192038681819?hash=item2cb665bcdb:g:MIoAAOSwB09YOdrf

From what i have gathered i need a quad core processor 3 ghz or thereabouts, and at least 8gb RAM, sound about right?
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aprilia 125 Af1 Futura >> Suzuki gsxr 600 srad >> J1 zx6r >> cbr 600rr >> Speed Triple

[M.C]

Avoid those shitty little office PCs, also avoid systems with onboard graphics. I built a PC for £180 using used parts earlier this year, so it can be done (2.6Ghz i7, 9GB RAM, GTX580).

[kerr]

I wouldn't even know where i would start with sourcing parts and building my own rig.
Is an older gaming machine a viable option? problem would be id essentially be paying for a fancy graphics card.
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aprilia 125 Af1 Futura >> Suzuki gsxr 600 srad >> J1 zx6r >> cbr 600rr >> Speed Triple

[doggone]

[WD Forte]

That spec is similar to my current PC which I recently stuck 16GB DDR3 in
My graphics card is only a cheapo 1GB silent thing but
I run Photoshop and Illustrator CS6 on it at 1920x1200 without any issues.
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bikers smell of wee

[Pjay]

To be fair, anything made in the last decade can do photo editing.
I'd concentrate on a decent monitor and high dpi mouse.

[M.C]

Problem's you're paying £200ish for something crap, when a bit more could get you something half decent. For under £300 you could build a decent system that's gonna last. Even something like this would IMO be a better investment.

For £200 you can bag a second hand i7 system on eBay.

[kerr]

[kerr]

Also yay or nah on an AMD chip?
I had an old gaming machine years ago with an AMD processor which worked with no issues, heard from a guy in the local pc shop that their utter garbage nowadays, but he did seem to be trying to give me the hard sell.
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aprilia 125 Af1 Futura >> Suzuki gsxr 600 srad >> J1 zx6r >> cbr 600rr >> Speed Triple

[bladerunner]

Pc spec will vary a bit depending on what sort of pic editing your doing. i5 cpu tho is more than good enough even if it's last gen. If your doing weddings and shooting 1000+ 20mp Raws and converting to 60mp Tiffs then 16gb of ram and an SSD are well worth the upgrade as even then you'll be taking 20 seconds to open groups of 10 into photoshop to edit!! If however your doing hobby type landscape pics it's not such an issue.

However DO NOT expect a cheap or old monitor to do you any favors with editing! A new 4k TV with hdmi will be 100% better than a 5yr old £200 pc monitor belive it or not!
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Current bikes...cbr929, KDX200's, Rd125lc mk2, RGV250's

[Pjay]

Fair enough, if you are using Lightroom, you might need some more oomph, but I seriously would just look more towards a decent display than anything else. At your budget, your PC is going to hit a ceiling pretty fast.

[M.C]

[Jayy]

The problem IS the budget. How can you sift through 100s / 1000s of high resolution images without a decent machine and monitor? You're talking £100's on a monitor alone, never mind a good rig to power it all.

I assume this is some kind of professional venture? If so, why would you be skimping big time on pretty much one of the main components of the business?

4K has been around for years now but now it's mainstream and you have to expect clients / customers will be using 4K devices and many with adaptive HDR too now. Imagine looking at your new shots on your £3,000 4KTV that were edited on a £50 monitor and look like dog shit?

[M.C]

If I was the OP I'd be keeping an eye on eBay, collection only (assuming they can collect) reduces the competition, and auctions that end at strange times (5 am etc.). Friday night's always a good time for auctions to end (not for sellers ), a bit far from the OP but as an example: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Scan-Custom-Built-Desktop-PC-Intel-i7-3-40GHz-8GB-RAM-/182368602010?hash=item2a7604079a:g:w~AAAOSwa~BYO1j9

[kerr]

[WD Forte]